French turban ban to be raised at European conference

 

Chandigarh, June 1, 2005
IANS

Growing religious intolerance in European countries and other regions will be taken up by the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) at an international meet in Spain this month.

Akali leader and MP Simranjit Singh Mann Wednesday said his party would send a delegation to Cordoba in Spain for the international conference organised by the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

He said the delegation would highlight the growing religious intolerance in Europe, especially against Sikhs.

"It is the first time that the problems of Sikhs will be highlighted at an international forum," Mann said.

Terming last year's ban imposed by the French government on the wearing of turbans by NRI Sikh students in public schools as "neo-fascism", he said such feelings were now spreading across Europe.

Religious intolerance, he said, was taking place under the garb of modern secularism.

Mann said three provinces in Germany were in the process of replicating the French ban against Sikhs wearing turbans.

An incident in Denmark where a Sikh carrying a religious symbol - the kirpan or sword - was arrested reflected indifference on the part of authorities towards the Sikh religion, he claimed.

Mann regretted that the Indian government was not doing enough at the diplomatic level to take up the turban issue with the French government.

On being reminded that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was a Sikh, he said that made little difference to the problems faced by the community globally.

Mann said the Indian government should issue a demarche to the French government on the turban issue and stall the purchase of military and other equipment from that country.

Referring to Afghanistan, Mann said the government there had asked Sikhs not to cremate their dead but to bury them.